But did he have other purposes? The head of the Benedictine order, Abbot Notker Wolf, understood the pope's quote as"a blatant allusion to [Iran's President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad." Vatican insiders told the London Sunday Times that Benedict"was trying to pre-empt an aggressive letter aimed at the papacy by the president of Iran, which was why he cited the debate involving a Persian."

First reflection: Benedict has offered elusive comments, brief statements, and now this delphic quotation, but he has not provided a much-needed major statement on this vital topic of Islam. One hopes it is in the offing.

Whatever the pope's purpose, he prompted the near-predictable furor in the Muslim world. Religious and political authorities widely condemned the speech, with some calling for violence.

In Britain, while leading a rally outside Westminster Cathedral, Anjem Choudary of Al-Ghurabaa called for the pope"to be subject to capital punishment."

In Iraq, the Mujahideen's Army threatened to"smash the crosses in the house of the dog from Rome" and other groups made blood-curdling threats.

In Kuwait, an important website called for violent retribution against Catholics.

Second reflection: this new round of Muslim outrage, violence, and murder has a by-now routine quality. Earlier versions occurred in 1989 (in response to Salman Rushdie's novel, The Satanic Verses), 1997 (when the U.S. Supreme Court did not take down a representation of Muhammad), 2002 (when Jerry Falwell called Muhammad a terrorist), 2005 (the fraudulent Koran-flushing episode), and February 2006 (the Danish cartoon incident).

Vatican leaders tried to defuse the pope's quote, as well as his condemnation of jihad (holy war). The papal spokesman, Federico Lombardi, S.J., said Benedict did not intend to give"an interpretation of Islam as violent; inside Islam there are many different positions and there are many positions that are not violent." Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the secretary of state, indicated that the pope"sincerely regrets that certain passages of his address could have sounded offensive to the sensitivities of the Muslim faithful."

Then, in what may be an unprecedented step by a pope, Benedict himself proffered the sort of semi-apology often favored by those feeling the heat."I am deeply sorry for the reactions in some countries to a few passages of my address," reads the official Vatican translation into English,"which were considered offensive to the sensibility of Muslims. These in fact were a quotation from a medieval text, which do not in any way express my personal thought."

Third reflection: the Muslim uproar has a goal: to prohibit criticism of Islam by Christians and thereby to impose Shariah norms on the West. Should Westerners accept this central tenet of Islamic law, others will surely follow. Retaining free speech about Islam, therefore, represents a critical defense against the imposition of an Islamic order.

This article is reprinted with permission by Daniel Pipes. This article first appeared in the New York Sun.

More Comments:

Charles Edward Heisler -
9/21/2006

"Third reflection: the Muslim uproar has a goal: to prohibit criticism of Islam by Christians and thereby to impose Shariah norms on the West. Should Westerners accept this central tenet of Islamic law, others will surely follow. Retaining free speech about Islam, therefore, represents a critical defense against the imposition of an Islamic order."

This is a fine, fine point. The Muslims seem to be using this tactic as a silencer for necessary discussions on their religion and how that religion coincides with other religions.
I appreciate the insight.

Jason B Keuter -
9/20/2006

In posts elsewhere, I've mentioned the eery similarities between the "anti-communist" charge so common during the Cold War and the "anti-Islamist" charge leveled today. In the former case, anyone pointing out the unseemly truth about the Soviet Union (and truths that weren't unseemly were rare to non-existent) was immediately accused of being "anti-communist", which meant that they didn't care about the victims of Soviet Imperialism or have concerns about the perfidious threat of growing Soviet Power. Instead they were on some kind of quest to destroy communism.

The same is true of the anti-Islam charge of today. Muslims in the Sudan murder hundreds of thousands of non-Muslims, putting them to the sword to make lebensraum for members of the true faith. Iran proclaims Islam the only true faith and promises the elimination of 6 million Jews. If you suggest that these people are violent or that their religion is inspiring them to violence, then you are not only "against Islam" but somehow are also a justifiable target of murderous violence - from Muslims.

The overall effect is to cow people into silent complicity with the spread of religious oppression and violence and mass murder. Last, of course, if we regard the proponents of all this as irrational and refuse to "engage", then we are not diplomatic - we are arrogant Imperialists.

The former communists in Italy's government are proudly talking of being able to engage Iran in dialogue to counter US insistence that Iran unambivalently foregoes anything even remotely connected to building a bomb with which they can fulfill its daily stated desire to kill every Jew in Israel. Of course these Italians are not Islamists, but when they were touting Eurocommunism, they went to great pains to point out that they weren't Stalinists either..